Synod’s Shared Conversations

Through a mixture of rain and shine, cool breezes and muggy stillness, General Synod spent three days engaged in ‘Shared Conversations’ about the Church and sexuality, the final event in a two-year process of conversations involving representatives from dioceses meeting to do the same around the country. Feedback from previous events had been somewhat mixed, and for me (and I think a good number of others) this also proved to be like the proverbial curate’s egg.

There were very good moments, and some genuinely helpful results of the process of listening to different views. The final plenary session on Tuesday morning brought together interesting insights from the different small groups, and gave a sense that progress had been made. In our groups of 20 or so, we had spent time in threes talking about our journeys of faith and how they related to the question of sexuality, and then looked at some scriptures together, and for me this was the high point. I was with one person who has similar views to me, and another who took a very different position, but both were fascinating people with some profound insights whom I found very stimulating to be with. Here was a glimpse of what a genuinely good process could look like, and we all felt frustrated that we could not spend more time together in discussion.

The plenary sessions on Monday afternoon were a more mixed affair, one basic problem being that there was just too much input in one go which made it very difficult to process and was very tiring. The first of these three involved listening to the experience of four same-sex attracted young people and their experiences, and it was deeply moving and challenging. I felt we should have simply sat for a while or had a break without saying anything; the pain and the trauma which was shared deserved more space and time for us to live with. Of the four, three were members of Diverse Church, who want to create a safe space for LGBT+ Christians without regard to what they decide about the C of E’s current teaching; the fourth came from Living Out, who want to create a safe space for LGBT+ Christians and believe in the C of E’s current teaching. Two of the four had painful stories about church leaders and members responding to them in insensitive, crass and damaging ways; the other two had found Christians responding to them positively and helpfully, without a hint of condemnation or judgementalism, which itself highlights one of the paradoxes around this issue.

The middle session, exploring issues of changing culture, was the best for me. There was a proper representation of different views, and the juxtaposition of contrasting approaches set out clearly what is at stake and what our options are. There is always here a temptation to listening for confirmation of one’s own view in such a range of speakers, and I am always wanting to find out how those who disagree with me viewed the speaker who agrees with me; it is all very well having my views confirmed, but is the position at all engaging and persuasive for others? I think it was significant that the clearest believer in the Church’s current teaching was viewed positively by many who disagreed with him—and this was helped by that person’s acknowledgement of the presence of virtue in the lives and relationships of people living in same-sex sexual partnerships, even though this person did not believe this was a holy way of life in line with God’s intention.

The last of these three sessions was far less helpful and far more problematic. A leader from Africa explained that, if the Church changed its teaching, many churches in Africa would need to sever the links with their ‘older brother’—but he did not give a compelling explanation of this conviction other than that this was the teaching Westerners themselves had brought in the 1930s. There must be many more compelling advocates of the theological position of these churches, and it was unhelpful that we were not offered a better explanation. A leader from the US said that the clash was between leaders, and at the grassroots people were actually working together well, which was a rather unconvincing account of the position in TEC where the church has been taking congregations to court about the ownership of property. The two other speakers also advocated that we could learn to live together, so there was a strong sense of the process leaning into a ‘live and let live’ approach, without exploring the possibility that this question might not be one of the adiaphora. The breezy bonhomie of the chair of this group didn’t really fit.

The worst plenary session of all was the first one, and it was very telling that what many view as the most important theological question—what does Scripture say and how should we make sense of it—was the one most badly misjudged. I don’t think it is an exaggeration to describe it as an absolute travesty of process. There were three speakers, one of whom supports the current teaching position of the Church, the other two arguing for change. The first person stayed within the brief, and spoke for seven to eight minutes; the second appeared to ignore the brief and spoke for 17 minutes, without intervention from the chair; the third spoke for 12 minutes. So we were offered 8 minutes on the Church’s current and historic teaching, and 29 minutes on why this was wrong. And the dynamic of putting the ‘orthodox’ position first meant that, as in all such debates, the advantage is handed to the others. Added to that, the first speaker, whilst eminently qualified in other ways, was not a biblical scholar, whilst the next one advocating change was. There was no voice from a Catholic perspective, engaging with the reception of Scripture within the tradition, and the ‘orthodox’ view was repeatedly labelled not as the Church’s teaching, but as ‘conservative’.

Even worse than that was the content of the second and third presentations, and the way the format prevented proper interrogation of the claims made. It was claimed that the givenness of sexual orientation is the settled view of Western culture, when it is contested both within and outside the church, is not supported by social-scientific research, and has been abandoned as a basis of argument in secular LGBT+ debate. It was claimed that all the texts in the NT referring to same-sex activity are in the context of porneia, ‘bad sex’, which was either commercial or abusive—which is a basic factual error. It was claimed that St Paul ‘could not have known of stable same-sex relations’ which is not supported by the historical facts. And it was claimed that same-sex relationships were the ‘eschatological fulfilment of Christian marriage’ since they involved loving commitment without procreation. It was not even acknowledged that many in the chamber would find that a deeply offensive assertion, quite apart from its implausibility. But the format of the presentation precluded proper exploration of these authoritative claims. It felt to me like a serious power play, and I felt I had been subject to an abuse of expert power.

All this was made worse when one of the key organisers, having picked up some negative feedback on this, stood up near the end of the day to tell us (in essence) that if you thought this first session was unbalanced, then you were wrong. It confirmed a basic lack of understanding of the concerns raised by those responsible for the process—concerns not of some extreme group at one end of the spectrum, but concerns of those who simply believe in the Church’s current teaching position. Yet again, throughout the whole day, it appeared to be impossible to find someone who would simply speak to affirm the current position, and who was presented not as being at one end of the spectrum, but as being a regular, orthodox Anglican. It is hardly a coincidence that (in the forthcoming Church Times article) all those pressing for a change in the Church’s teaching thought that it was very fair, and that we had heard the biblical arguments. It wasn’t, and we didn’t. After two years of planning, the ‘orthodox’ speakers were only finalised in the previous week. This confirms some of the suspicions of the ‘conservatives’ who stayed away, but I think it was a mistake not to be there, as their presence could have helped us in this.

This was exacerbated for me by the facilitation in groups. Several times we were reprimanded for actually trying to discuss the issues involved, and understand what each other believed and why, and what the differences were. We were not supposed to be discussing this, but only talking about how we might talk about it. When questions were raised about the process itself, this was clearly out of bounds, and our facilitator responded by using emotional language—’I am disappointed…I am sad.’ The fundamental problem here was the underlying approach—that there are no right answers, and no given positions, and so what is needed is a juxtaposition of different views so that mutual respect can emerge. This might be just right for a position of political conflict, where there is no ‘objective’ position which can act as a reference point. But how can this be right in a context where the Church itself already has a committed position, one that has the weight of history behind it, and a position which, in theory, all the clergy and the bishops have themselves signed up to believing, supporting and teaching. Any group which included clergy in same-sex marriages would need to face the asymmetry that they have in their midst people who are disregarding the teaching position of the Church, and that cannot be an insignificant factor in shaping the debate. That is not a reason to avoid listening to the whole range of views. But it is a reason for thinking that we are not working with a tabula rasa, where we are simply doing theology de novo as if there is not a deep and broad theological legacy to wrestle with.

It is not immediately clear where we go from here. There was a sense of frustration in our group that this could have been an opportunity to serious engage with the issues; many of us had been engaged in discussion on this and others issues with people with whom we disagreed, and we did not need to be infantilised by being told to ‘hold things’. (If I hear anyone comment ‘What I hear your saying…’ in the next few days, I won’t be held responsible for my actions…!) It was clear that small group discussion is essential to any future engagement; an old-style Synod debate will take us back to a binary win/lose position. I have a question about whether Synod is genuinely competent to debate and decide on this issue; we were not all elected on the basis of our theological competence; a group of 500 is the worst place to discuss such things; and it seems to me to be usurping the role of episcopal leadership. So we will need to look to the House of Bishops to propose a way forward of which Synod will need to have good understanding and to which Synod will need to give its assent.

If there is a change either in the doctrine of marriage or of the significant pastoral accommodation beyond what we already have (in terms of the differing standards for laity in Issues and the concession on civil partnerships for clergy), then I think this will lead to a serious division and possibly a split in the Church. There was a strong consensus that that was what we all wanted to avoid. But whatever happens, if those managing the process do not demonstrate a much better understanding of and engagement with those who actually believe in what the bishops currently teach then there will be trouble ahead.

This first appeared on Ian Paul's blog, Psephizo, and we are grateful for permission to reproduce here on Fulcrum.

15 thoughts on “Synod’s Shared Conversations”

Canon Ashey comments: “When all else fails, when leaders in the Church reaffirm the clarity and authority of the Scriptures, when they question proposed changes in the Church’s teaching and the facts experts are marshalling to justify those changes, genuine conversation simply fails. It reverts instead to manipulation, labelling and expressions of disappointment by those who are advocating the changes and who will not in good faith engage the clarity of the Scriptures and their authority. “Good disagreement” of any kind is impossible in the face of such ad hominem responses, as we discovered in TEC.”

Or perhaps *good disagreement* is bearing patiently with the cognitive distortions of others, even as we decline to be misled by them. Otherwise, how can one avoid being a log-eyed mote-picker?

Ken, I entirely agree with you. And it would be good to see much more effort going into finding and working out some such compromise than the ding-dong battle we so often have had, especially as that battle shows little sign of having a successful outcome for either side of the debate.
If we could find and implement such a compromise it would be of immense benefit to gay and lesbian couples, be a great help to those churches that want to fully welcome LGBT people, and it just might be a way to move forward without provoking Reform, GAFCON et al into producing a split in the C of E or in the Anglican Communion.

George, I think of *compromise* as an agreement in which each side gets something it wants in return for giving up something else it also wants. What might traditionalists in nailed leather boots expect to gain from a compromise with those on the other side? What might those with lighter soles expect to give up to get some recognition of SSM?

“It confirmed a basic lack of understanding of the concerns raised by those responsible for the process—concerns not of some extreme group at one end of the spectrum, but concerns of those who simply believe in the Church’s current teaching position. Yet again, throughout the whole day, it appeared to be impossible to find someone who would simply speak to affirm the current position, and who was presented not as being at one end of the spectrum, but as being a regular, orthodox Anglican…

“The fundamental problem here was the underlying approach—that there are no right answers, and no given positions, and so what is needed is a juxtaposition of different views so that mutual respect can emerge. This might be just right for a position of political conflict, where there is no ‘objective’ position which can act as a reference point. But how can this be right in a context where the Church itself already has a committed position, one that has the weight of history behind it, and a position which, in theory, all the clergy and the bishops have themselves signed up to believing, supporting and teaching …we are not working with a tabula rasa, where we are simply doing theology de novo as if there is not a deep and broad theological legacy to wrestle with.”

Ian’s OP describes a certain procedural unfairness so lucidly that I shall be linking to it elsewhere for quite a while. But to those who believe that their church’s approval of contraception has necessarily been an approval of marriages on the basis of childless soulmating rather than procreation and family-building, any robust assertion of the “regular, orthodox, Anglican” position that he prefers is the startling innovation of a small minority. Annoying as the staged *tabula rasa* understandably is to Ian, the idea that marriage centred in biology is still being posited as an option is at least as annoying to many late modern churchfolk. One side has the bishops and canons on its side, the other has the praying majority on its side, and each is trying to look down a certain moral slope at an inferior other. And, for the most part, each is disingenuously minimising the implications of its position.

“I think it was significant that the clearest believer in the Church’s current teaching was viewed positively by many who disagreed with him—and this was helped by that person’s acknowledgement of the presence of virtue in the lives and relationships of people living in same-sex sexual partnerships, even though this person did not believe this was a holy way of life in line with God’s intention.”

It was significant. Polarisation depends on the suppression of views nearer the centre than the embattled extremes. Polarised conflicts end as opposing voices identify points of agreement that allow more centrist positions to emerge. If there must be “experts” in a Shared Conversation, perhaps they should be, not happy warriors representing the *dead ends*, but rather serious negotiators prepared to make explicit concessions to the other side? Might it not be more faithful to Christ to model reconciliation rather than conflict?

This issue has hit me rather directly at the moment in the church with which I have been involved for the last 7 years. It has caused me to reflect on how we might limit the damage.

I have come to the conclusion this is not an issue where either side can win, and in the interests of the Gospel we shouldn’t even try. Instead, we should fall back on that good old Anglican principle of Comprehensiveness. What we need is a Church (and an Anglican Communion) where no one is forced to compromise their beliefs and everyone is entitled to stand up for what they believe so a free and ongoing exchange can take place with no end game in sight.

If we can agree to disagree about the precise mechanism of the Atonement and exactly what happens at the Eucharist, if we can have different views on women’s ministry within the Christian community, why can we not similarly recognise there are different understandings of what Scripture and principles drawn therefrom teach about this issue?

After all, the Eucharist is unquestionably a sacrament, and marriage is not officially one, and if some think it is, that is a matter for their own conscience. It is not only about “things indifferent” Anglicans have a range of interpretations. We allow divergence on important issues precisely because they are important, and therefore people’s consciences cannot stand compulsion.

This is somewhere the Church can stand as a beacon of hope, for while many in the world try to force their views on others, we can show a better, more considerate, more loving way, of allowing dissent and showing how that enables us to hold together and no one has to fight.

We would have to pay attention to how some doctrines and canons are worded to allow sufficient flexibility so honour can be maintained by all, but that’s one of the gifts the Anglican Communion has for this complex world. We could do it and everyone could stay loyal to God as they understand him.

‘If we can agree to disagree about the precise mechanism of the Atonement and exactly what happens at the Eucharist, if we can have different views on women’s ministry within the Christian community………’

The Church of England is not a community of common belief. As I have argued at length we disagree, fundamentally disagree, about truths and untruths deeper and more vital than the sexuality disagreement, like: did God and Christ say and do all that the Bible declares?; are we all faced from birth onwards with the holy wrath and just condemnation of God?; has God chosen in eternity those whom he will save?; does the death of Christ turn away that holy wrath from those who believe?
There is no overarching paradigm whereby these diametrically opposite beliefs can be harmonised. It is rather a question of one belief being right and the other wrong. There is no via media.
The Church of England is an organisation where people of diametrically opposite beliefs share the same financial resources and the same governance structures.

Ken, I don’t think I understand what you are proposing. In the C of E, clergy are not free to think marriage is a sacrament as a matter for their own conscience, not least since the Articles reject this and the liturgy does not give any warrant for it.

What could a ‘compromise’ look like, when one half believe same-sex sexual relationships to be sinful, and the other half believe they are not only equivalent to marriage but in some regards spiritually superior to other-sex marriage? That is precisely what the debate is here: whether this is an issue on which we can agree to disagree, or whether it is not. What does a compromise on this question look like?

You are, of course both right and wrong. Only in the C of E could that be true! Yes, the 39 Articles are clear that there are only two sacraments and all clergy assent to them, but a few years ago I attended a confirmation service in an option C parish where the “flying bishop” told his new confirmands that confirmation was one of the seven sacraments of the Church. There were no howls of protest, not even from me, and I do not think that was because everyone else bit their tongue. I disagreed quietly with what was said; I suspect most of the others present probably agreed with him.

You may similarly argue that the Articles do not make room for the Real Presence, but it is widely believed in many places despite that, and even full transubstantiation in places as well. If I’m honest with myself, I have to admit Cranmer’s argument against the Real Presence is rather weak. Christ is a hypostasis of the omnipotent and omnipresent Godhead, so to argue that it is impossible for him to be present in two places at once isn’t really that convincing. It is one of the Articles, but probably not one of the better ones.

As for what such a settlement would look like; it would simply acknowledge a divergence of views and affirm that so long as people are honestly seeking to live by the Scriptures as they understand them, that is all we can require of them. Maybe we would have two or more definitions of marriage (not gay and straight, but the current ecclesiastical and secular models), parallel but distinct, so most (ie opposite-sex) couples could choose which one most fitted their belief (and clergy could choose which one[s] they were prepared to solemnise) and all couples would have at least one of the definitions available. Of course it would require an extra box on the marriage certificate, or perhaps separate registers, and how we would negotiate that with the secular authorities would remain to be seen, but these are details of implementation which follow from the decision in principle.

I can tell you how I think you should interpret Scripture, but I can’t tell you how you will interpret it, and any attempt to do so will inevitably lead to schism, but if we draw back and allow each other a little freedom, there’s no reason why we cannot continue to uphold our mutual beliefs and keep the visible unity of the Gospel in a real world where we can’t agree about everything. As they used to say in Ecumenical circles, unity does not mean uniformity.

“As for what such a settlement would look like; it would simply acknowledge a divergence of views… Maybe we would have two or more definitions of marriage…”

Thank you, Ken, for raising the question of compromise. Whether it helps churches to avoid schism or not– are not the ACNA and the Free CoE already in communion?– it helps discussion by encouraging happy warriors to think about Anglican futures more likely than the total victory of one side or the other. Views actually diverge, however, not over the mechanics of SSM, but over the ways rival paradigms of ministry respond to two indirectly related facts.

Fact 1: As has happened in societies both ancient and modern, a long rise in the prosperity of societies such as our own* has led to declining birthrates. The more this is the case in any particular society, the stronger will be the social pressure for its churches to formulate sexual morality in terms unrelated to procreation (eg TEC’s Task Force for the Study of Marriage, ACANZP’s Way Forward Task Force). The Bible was not written and collected by such a society, and its sexual ethic emphasises procreation (cf Genesis 1:28, Malachi 2:14-15). Concomitantly, a falling birthrate has several consequences adverse to social justice.

Fact 2: Just as there have been people who were born blind from time immemorial, so too there have been some few people who did not come from the womb on a clear trajectory to the full realization of either sex. The Bible, be it noted, nowhere says that all in the post-Fall aeon are born able to be as Adam and Eve were. Jesus healed some who were not born whole.

The plurality of Anglicans in the North could be reasonably content with churches that somehow acknowledged permanent relationships between serious Christians of anomalous sexuality (Fact 2), but nevertheless maintained the traditional sexual ethos for the vast majority. They are not disturbed to learn that God’s providence allows anomalies about 3% of the time, and they do not demand that the rules for the 97% be rigorously applied to them.

But over their heads, there is a more or less institutionalised air war between those whose theology does not yet accommodate Fact 2 at all, and those mindful of Fact 1 who wish to pull the ethos of the heterosexual majority away from the Bible’s concern for procreation and toward the mores of societies with low birth rates. For both, SSM is a battle in some longer campaign not directly related to homosexuality. Importantly, each air force demands that the same rules be rigorously applied to 100% of all humanity. Because what you propose promises them only some part of the whole, neither will settle for it.

If the dogfights in the sky were suspended for a while, we might have a broader and better conversation about the two Facts in the lives of contemporary Christians in the North. France’s high fertility rate augurs an enviable future for its economy and society, and many attribute that rate to laws requiring workplaces that better accommodate mothers. If that is true, then those eager to defend a biblical sexual ethic in the UK or the US might worry much less that sexual minorities have emerged from the shadows and fight much more against creeping anti-natalism and for workplace reform.

Well, I don’t believe in compromise. I believe in comprehensiveness, which is the opposite of compromise. It allows people to co-exist without having to compromise their beliefs.

The important thing here is to recognise that a thoroughgoing conclusive solution to this issue would take decades to be agreed and we simply won’t have that time unless we work to protect minority interests in this debate that allow the process to continue indefinitely. The General Synod is not a theological or academic debating society. It is three of the five legislative houses with jurisdiction over England and its acts and measures are law which applies to every English citizen whether Christian or not.

The Marriage (same sex couples) Act 2013 has created an anomaly in English law in that there are now two legal definitions of marriage – one in Ecclesiastical law and the other in civil law, and that anomaly is confusing and embarrassing for all. This generates political pressure to bring the two into line, not over the next fifty years but ASAP, certainly within the current quinquennium and probably within the next year. The Supreme Governor of the Church has already, in her capacity as Head of State, given assent to the civil change, which again compounds the confusion and embarrassment.

As the bishops discovered when the above-mentioned bill went through the House of Lords, trying to stand out for everything just puts us on the losing side and gets us ignored. At the moment the debate is live and there is some sense in which this provides a defence against “hate-crime” for those who dissent from the majority view being imposed by society. The moment Synod outlaws that dissent freedom of speech on the issue will disappear in England and all further debate will become illegal in practice. Then our Free Church brethren may well find themselves in court facing fines and imprisonment.

That is why I am not prepared to waste time at this stage discussing the substantive issue; there is not time for that and we must face the realpolitik and work for the preservation of freedom of conscience. That is going to be a hard enough fight, but it’s the only one we might have a chance of winning.

I am against everyone who thinks they should be able to impose their view on others because a much bigger issue is at stake – free speech itself. In England free speech is a value, not a right. We must fight to defend it.

As I have posted on his website, I think Ian is right about same-sex sexual relationships but I think he is wrong bout the ordination of women. The CofE has decided (rightly or wrongly – I believe wrongly) to agree to disagree on WO. Without trivialising something that may yet unravel, this has been relatively simple – just a question of whether the vicar is a man or a woman. To agree to disagree on same-sex relationships would be a whole new ball-game in complexity and fraughtness and hurt.
But as I keep saying, the doctrinal rot is deeper than these two issues: it is about original sin, eternal punishment, predestination, propitiation etc. It is no good splitting the Church of England at this stage because there are not two parts each with a coherent view. What is needed is a frank, painful, honest debate on the web open to all, on all these controversies. Then we may be in a stronger position to know what to do.

As you may recall, Ken, some villagers have objected that Romans 1:32 does not let them belong to anything that approves the acts disapproved in Romans 1. Ian’s view may not be their view– Ian?– but it is an indication that it is very difficult to reach common ground by circumventing the text of scripture. In fact, any decision reached by the Church of England will be compared with scripture anyway and the consequences will follow that comparison. For that reason, it would be wisest for Anglicans to forthrightly engage the Word itself.

Indeed it is not. The optics give every side some plausible reason to avoid making concessions and to continue to contest what the other sides say. And although the dynamic of “synodical governance” has done much to undermine “episcopal leadership,” it has legitimacy rather than credibility. Does anyone actually *believe* anything on the authority of a synod conceived as a representative body?

In association with The Centre for Theology and Community and the Hurtado Jesuit Centre, this is a chance to get together, have a drink, meet some new faces and talk about theology. It’s 6.30pm-8.30pm on Friday 13th September at The Angel (101 Bermondsey Wall East, Rotherhithe, SE16 4NB).